First you're 23, then you turn 24, but the whole time you've actually been 25! Welcome to Korea: where age has never seemed more arbitrary.

My 24th year has officially arrived, and I must say I'd consider it arrived in style. (Though in Korea I'm considered to be 25... and have been since the 1st of January)  The Saturday night before my birthday I met a number of foreigners at a party in a park before heading into Seoul to go out for dinner and drinks with Kyu-po.  My request was that we go somewhere I would never be able to navigate on my own (given I speak absolutely no Korean... and the only word I've picked up so far is "please", which Kyu-po informed me isn't really please, but more like "give me that", it wasn't to hard of a request to fill.) Oh, and I know the word for "5" too.  And I almost have hello.  But that really is the extent of my Korean vocabulary at this point.  Anyway, we went to a funky underground restaurant that served traditional Korean food, and was delicious.  Kyu-po ordered as the menu was entirely in Korean and I didn't particularly care what we ate, and we ended up with tofu with Kimchi (fermented veggies with spices...it's a staple here, but the kimchi at this place was the best I've had so far), mussels in some sort of white garlic sauce, and an as yet-to-be-determined-in-English chicken organ sauteed with veggies and a garlic dipping sauce.  Everything was delicious.  And made all the better by rice wine and Soju (a Korean alcohol that doesn't taste like anything...it's so easy to embrace! Though I suppose that's all the more reason to be slightly wary of it...)  Though my actual birthday was pretty low key- it was spent recovering and preparing for my own 24th birthday present to myself- a trip to Seorak-San National Park.